Thursday, October 28, 2010

Flickering Tea Light Treat Bag

With Halloween just a few days away, I really enjoyed creating this little treat bag that lights up for the CC Blog contest. It was fairly easy to make and one of the few times the finished project ended up looking just as I had envisioned it.
The bag is from page 75 on the Mini Monsters cartridge . It is cut at 8.5 inches and required the 12 x 24 mat. Hide contour was used to eliminate a few unnecessary inner cuts. I scored all of the marks but did not fold the bag. The front, back and sides of the bag were measured and then I cut decorative paper about 1/2 inch smaller for each of the four sections. I adhered the decorative paper with my ATG and added faux stitching along the zig zag top with a white pen.
Next, the pumpkin was cut at 4.75 inches with a matching shadow. The eyes, nose and mouth were outlined with a black sharpie and then a white pen was used for highlights. The shadow needed to be trimmed to allow light to shine through, so I took an exacto knife and cut away the middle leaving just a rim of the shadow. The rim/shadow was then glued to the back of the pumpkin. Taking a sheet of vellum, I used the direct to paper method and applied straw colored Tim Holtz Distress Ink. It is slow drying and I was impatient, so used a heat gun to quick dry. Trimmed the vellum to fit the back of the pumpkin and then adhered with quick dry glue.
I used the ATG to assemble and adhere the bag together. The inside was lined with aluminum foil so it would help to reflect more light and make the tea candles appear brighter. I just set the two battery operated flickering tea candles inside and then created a removable "shelf" about 4 1/2 inches high. The shelf just loosely sits inside and serves as a raised bottom which allows the lights to shine through the vellum underneath and still provides support for the shred and candy on top.

Unfortunately, the picture doesn't demonstrate how the lights inside flicker and make the pumpkin appear to be lit up. This picture was taken on the night setting on my camera and does at least show the glow coming from the face cut outs.

This pic was taken fully lit and just shows the true colors of the bag.